Thursday, September 23, 2010

Quaeritur: Who brings a reliable scholastic tradition, into our modern times? I am trying to find apologies for a scholastic, perennial, and Christian (if you will indulge that, if not, fine, but traditional and reliable is a must) philosophy up into our modern error, all the while defending philosophy against all the errors of modern philosophy, post Vatican 2. Who represents tradition post Vatican 2? In whom does the continuation of tradition reside? Also, what am I to think of Maritain?

Respondeo: No post-conciliar philosopher, to my knowledge, has written a thorough critique of post-conciliar philosophical errors--maybe you could be the first!

That said, post-conciliar philosophical and theological errors were already present right before the council. There is really "nothing new under the sun." Garrigou-Lagrange wrote plenty to refute those same errors that we are suffering today. See Pius XII's encyclical Humani generis (Garrigou is said to be the drafter or 'ghostwriter'), Garrigou's "Where is the New Theology Leading Us?" and his "Structure of the Encyclical Humani Generis." In addition, his Le sens commun is a superb philosophical examination of false theological views on the nature of dogma, but it is unfortunately untranslated (I hope to translate it someday).

Very few contemporary scholars are real traditional Catholics. Garrigou-Lagrange is, of course, the best and most faithful Thomist of the 20th Century and he died in 1964, during the Council. Among truly traditional Thomists who continued writing after the Council are Emmanuel Doronzo (Latin and English) and Santiago Ramirez (Latin and Spanish). Another good one that continued writing well after the council until recently was Royo Marin (who wrote in Spanish). But these men were mainly theologians. There are a few other minor philosophers today who are both traditional Thomists and traditional Catholics. But they're almost all part-time scholars (such as Fr. Ripperger), or they're young scholars struggling to gain respect in academia and have to be careful with what they say. (Hint: Don Paco is just my nickname.)

Maritain (like Gilson) is good for some things, especially the more speculative, traditional scholastic topics (such as natural philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology), but is not very orthodox when it comes to practical things, such as personalism, religious liberty, ethics, art, political philosophy, cultural though, etc. In these respects he is very much a liberal and a promoter of post-concilar ideas. He also has a strange view of the relationship of the sciences.

I recommend you read Peddicord's The Sacred Monster of Thomism, on Garrigou-Lagrange. It will give you a sense of who Garrigou was and why it's important that we 'retrieve' his thought in our times (i.e., to rescue tradition) as well as shed light into the thought of Maritain and the new theologians.

290 Besides both in Synodical letters which were written by blessed Cyril against the impious Nestorius and to the oriental bishops, following also the five holy ecumenical councils and the holy and trusted Fathers, and defining harmoniously with them it confesses: that our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, one of the holy and consubstantial Trinity and giving forth the origin of life, perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in humanity, truly God and truly man, Himself of a rational soul and body; it confesses the same consubstantial with the Father according to Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to humanity, through all things like to us except in sin [Heb. 4:15], before ages, indeed, begotten of the Father according to Godhead, in the last days, however, the same for us and for our salvation of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary properly and truly the mother of God according to humanity, one and the same Christ, the only begotten Lord God in two natures recognized unfusedly, unchangeably, inseparably, indivisibly, never the difference of these natures destroyed on account of union, but rather the property of each nature saved and in one person and in one substance concurring, not into two persons portioned or divided but one and the same only begotten Son of God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, just as formerly the prophets taught us about Him, and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us [Conc. Chal., see n. 148].

291 And so we proclaim two natural wills in Him, and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, unfusedly according to the doctrine of the holy Father, and two natural wills not contrary, God forbid, according as impious heretics have asserted, but the human will following and not resisting or hesitating, but rather even submitting to His divine and omnipotent will. For, it is necessary that the will of the flesh act, but that it be subject to the divine will according to the most wise Athanasius. For, as His flesh is called and is the flesh of the Word of God, so also the natural will of His flesh is called and is the proper will of the Word of God as He Himself says: "Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of my Father who sent me)," [cf. John 6:38], calling the will of the flesh His own. For the body became His own. For as His most holy and immaculate animated flesh deified has not been destroyed but in its own status and plan remained, so also His human will deified has not been destroyed, but on the contrary it has been saved according to the theologian Gregory who says: "For to wish of that one an entire deification, which is understood in the Savior, is not contrary to God."

292 But we glorify two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, unfusedly, inseparably in our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, our true God, that is, the divine operation and the human operation, according to Leo the divine preacher who very clearly asserts: "For each form does what is proper to itself with the mutual participation of the other, that is, the Word doing what is of the Word and the flesh accomplishing what is of the flesh" [see n. 144]. For at no time shall we grant one natural operation to God and to the creature, so that neither what was created, we raise into divine essence, nor what is especially of divine nature, we cast down to a place begetting creatures. For of one and the same we recognize the miracles and the sufferings according to the one and the other of these natures from which He is and in which He has to be as the admirable Cyril says. Therefore we, maintaining completely an unconfused and undivided (opinion), In a brief statement set forth all: that we, believing that He is one of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ our true God, and after the incarnation assert that His two natures radiate in His one substance, in which His miracles and His sufferings through all His ordained life, not through phantasy but truly He has shown, on account of the natural difference which is recognized in the same single substance, while with the mutual participation of the other, each nature indivisibly and without confusion willed and performed its own works; according to this plan we confess two natural wills and operations concurring mutually in Him for the salvation of the human race.

293 These things, therefore, having been determined by us with all caution and diligence, we declare that no one is permitted to introduce, or to describe, or to compare, or to study, or otherwise to teach another faith. But whoever presumes to compare or to introduce or to teach or to pass on another creed to those wishing to turn from the belief of the Gentiles or of the Jews or from any heresy whatsoever to the acknowledgement of truth, or who (presumes) to introduce a novel doctrine or an invention of discourse to the subversion of those things which now have been determined by us, (we declare) these, whether they are bishops or clerics, to be excommunicated, bishops indeed from the bishopric, but priests from the priesthood; but if they are monks or laymen, to be anathematized.

Torquemada: Hammer of Heretics, Light and Saviour of Spain, Honor of his Order

On the 512th Anniversary of the Death of Tomás de Torquemada, OP

From Catholic Encyclopedia, "Tomás de Torquemada"

First Grand Inquisitor of Spain, born at Valladolid in 1420; died at Avila, 16 September, 1498. He was a nephew of the celebrated theologian and cardinal, Juan de Torquemada. In his early youth he entered the Dominican monastery at Valladolid, and later was appointed prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia, an office which he held for twenty-two years. The Infanta Isabella chose him as her confessor while at Segovia, and when she succeeded to the throne of Castile in 1474 he became one of her most trusted and influential councillors, but refused all high ecclesiastical preferments, choosing to remain a simple friar.

At that time the purity of the Catholic Faith in Spain was in great danger from the numerous Marranos and Moriscos, who, for material considerations, became sham converts from Judaism and Mohammedanism to Christianity. The Marranos committed serious outrages against Christianity and endeavoured to judaize the whole of Spain. The Inquisition, which the Catholic sovereigns had been empowered to establish by Sixtus IV in 1478, had, despite unjustifiable cruelties, failed of its purpose, chiefly for want of centralisation. In 1483 the pope appointed Torquemada, who had been an assistant inquisitor since 11 February 1482, Grand Inquisitor of Castile, and on 17 October extended his jurisdiction over Aragon.

As papal representative and the highest official of the inquisitorial court, Torquemada directed the entire business of the Inquisition in Spain, was empowered to delegate his inquisitorial faculties to other Inquisitors of his own choosing, who remained accountable to him, and settled the appeals made to the Holy See. He immediately established tribunals at Valladolid, Seville, Jaén, Avila, Cordova, and Villareal, and, in 1484, at Saragossa for the Kingdom of Aragon. He also instituted a High Council, consisting of five members, whose chief duty was to assist him in the hearing of appeals (see INQUISITION — The Inquisition in Spain). He convened a general assembly of Spanish inquisitors at Seville, 29 November, 1484, and presented an outline of twenty-eight articles for their guidance. To these he added several new statutes in 1485, 1488, and 1498 (Reuss, "Sammlungen der Instructionen des spanischen Inquisitionsgerichts", Hanover, 1788). The Marranos found a powerful means of evading the tribunals in the Jews of Spain, whose riches had made them very influential and over whom the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. On this account Torquemada urged the sovereigns to compel all the Jews either to become Christians or to leave Spain. To frustrate his designs the Jews agreed to pay the Spanish government 30,000 ducats if left unmolested. There is a tradition that when Ferdinand was about to yield to the enticing offer, Torquemada appeared before him, bearing a crucifix aloft, and exclaiming: "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him." Leaving the crucifix on the table he left the room. Chiefly through his instrumentality the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.

Much has been written of the inhuman cruelty of Torquemada. Llorente computes that during Torquemada's office (1483-98) 8800 suffered death by fire and 9,654 were punished in other ways (Histoire de l'Inquisition, IV, 252). These figures are highly exaggerated, as has been conclusively proved by Hefele (Cardinal Ximenes, ch. xviii), Gams (Kirchengeschichte von Spanien, III, II, 68-76), and many others. Even the Jewish historian Graetz contents himself with stating that "under the first Inquisitor Torquemada, in the course of fourteen years (1485-1498) at least 2000 Jews were burnt as impenitent sinners" ("History of the Jews", Philadelphia, 1897, IV, 356). Most historians hold with the Protestant Peschel (Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Stuttgart, 1877, pp. 119 sq.) that the number of persons burnt from 1481 to 1504, when Isabella died, was about 2000. Whether Torquemada's ways of ferreting out and punishing heretics were justifiable is a matter that has to be decided not only by comparison with the penal standard of the fifteenth century, but also, and chiefly, by an inquiry into their necessity for the preservation of Christian Spain. The contemporary Spanish chronicler, Sebastian de Olmedo (Chronicon magistrorum generalium Ordinis Prædicatorum, fol. 80-81) calls Torquemada "the hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honour of his order".

Monday, September 13, 2010

From Greenstock, David, T.O.P. "Thomism and the New Theology" The Thomist 13 (1950), 567-96, quoted at 575-8 (emphasis added and footnotes redacted; submitted by an Ite ad Thomam reader).

St. Thomas’ view of this problem of the relationship between faith and reason which gives rise to the science of theology was both deep and clear and is admirably set out and defended by John of St. Thomas. Theology is a true science, indeed it is the most noble of the sciences worthy in every way of the name of sapientia. The principles upon which it relies in its evolution and in its investigations are those divine facts which have been revealed by God. However, as a science, those divinely revealed principles do not form its proper object, that is the role of the conclusions which are drawn from them with the help of human reason. Such a statement, which seems so clear to us now, was a real revolution when it was first made. The object of the science of theology is the theological conclusion strictly so called. Now, in order to deduce these conclusions from revealed truth there is need of a fitting instrument with which to work. Sometimes this instrument takes the form of another revealed truth, while at other times it is a truth which is known to human reason by its own unaided efforts. Now, obviously, the minor premise which contains another revealed truth will have far greater influence on the conclusion than one which contains a truth known to human reason alone. But, and here is the crux of the whole question, even though the human truth occupies an inferior position, that of a mere instrument, the revealed truth in the major premise does exercise a great influence on that human instrument. That is why St. Thomas speaks of these natural truths which are so used in theology as that “handmaidens” of that science, in the sense that theology, as a true science, makes use of these human truths for its major purpose, which is to explain revealed truth in human language, so far as that is possible.

The position of the new theologians is very different from that of Aquinas. Their idea is that theological reasoning consists in using revealed truth in order to draw out of the full latent content contained in human truths--the contrary, in fact of the Thomist position. This is a logical conclusion which follows from their vitalistic attitude towards truth and especially from their statements that the theological conclusion strictly so called has little or no value. It also follows from their teaching with regard to the evolution, necessarily connected with contemporary history, through which theology must pass if it is to remain alive and to play an effective part in the modern world. As one of the partisans of the new theology expresses it, “L’histoire manifeste donc a la fois la relativite des notions, des schemes ou la theologie et, en mem temps, offer aux regards de la foi l’affirmation absolue, la Parole divine qui s’y est incarnee.” (Henri Bouillard) Thus, human reasoning, which changes according to the dictates of its historical evolution and the necessities of the times, uses the permanent element, which is divine truth, as an instrument to develop and present its latent content.

Thus the central problem which confronts us here is quite simply one of two contrary ways of considering the relation between revelation and reason. Either reason is the instrument in the development of revealed truth or the revealed truth is the instrument of reason. It is our opinion that, unless the fact which we have mentioned before–of the great influence of the revealed truths on the natural truth which is used as an instrument in their full development–is understood and clearly brought to light, thenthis fundamental error in the new theology will never be completely overcome. For that reason it is useful to notice that the same conclusion could have been reached by a consideration of the role of the middle term in the theological syllogism, which in one case–that of the major premise–is a revealed truth, and in the other minor premise, a truth of human reason. In order that this middle term in the minor premise may have exactly the same sense as that which it has in the major premise, thus avoiding four terms in the syllogism, it must of necessity have the “approval,” as it were, of the revealed truth. If we examine it carefully we shall see that it is just this approval which gives to the theological conclusion its full force as an element in the expression of divine revelation which also brings to light the role of human truth as an instrument in theology.

We know that, according to St. Thomas, the instrument has a double activity, i.e., its own, which is attributed to its personal activity in the forming of the effect, and also another power which it receives from that cause which uses it as an instrument. Thus, in the theological conclusion we are not dealing with a series of probabilities, but with strict conclusions in the form of judgments which correspond to the ontological truth virtually contained in the revealed principles. This doctrine has been very clearly expressed by John of St. Thomas, when he said:

From all these various angles we reach one and the same conclusion, namely that it is the truth of faith which plays the active part in the theological process of reasoning, using the natural truth to develop the latent content in revelation, and using it as a strict instrument in the Thomist sense of that word. For this reason those theological conclusions are more certain than any merely natural truth could ever be, because they are reduced, in their final analysis, to a higher principle than natural reason, one which is supernatural and divine, which colours all that is human in the theological process, giving it a new and a supernatural value. It is this divine element in theology which unifies everything, even speculative and the practical aspects of it. Because the new theology has failed to appreciate this truth with regard to the theological conclusion it has also failed to realize the role of the merely human truth as an instrument of faith.

At that time, when Jesus went into the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees on the Sabbath day to eat bread, they watched Him. And behold, there was a certain man before Him that had dropsy: and Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? But they held their peace: but He taking him, healed him, and sent him away. And answering them, He said: Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer Him these things. And He spoke a parable also to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honourable than thou be invited by him; and he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee: Give this man place; and then, thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place: that when he who invited thee cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee: because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

At that time : As Jesus went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees, to eat bread on the sabbath-day, they watched him. And, behold, there was a certain man before him, which had the dropsy. And so on, and that which followeth.

Now is healed this man sick of the dropsy, in whom too much watery matter had well-nigh drowned the functions of life, and quenched the fire of understanding. Anon, a lesson is given in lowly-mindedness, when it is forbidden to the guests at a marriage feast to go and sit down unasked in the highest room, albeit the Lord spake gently, that the teaching of courtesy might forestall a harsh rebuke, reason prevail by dint of persuasion, and the desires be bent to follow the instruction. And upon this, as next-door neighbour, cometh courtesy, which is so called by the Lord, when it is shewn to the poor and weak, since to shew it to them from whom we are to receive aught, is but a movement of self-interest.

Lastly, as to a soldier that hath served his full time, is apportioned a reward for esteeming lightly of riches : so he only can inherit the kingdom of God, whose soul is not given to seek after lower ends, and who purchaseth not to himself earthly possessions ; whereas the Lord saith : Sell that thou hast, and follow me. Neither can he gain it that buyeth oxen, which beasts Elisha slew and gave unto the people. Neither can he win it which married a wife and therefore cannot come, for he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord ; but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. Not that this is to be taken for blame of marriage, but only that virginity is the more honourable way, since the unmarried woman―and the widow, careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit.

R. The two Seraphim did cry the One to the Other : *Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts : *The whole earth is full of his glory.V.For there are Three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost : and these Three are One.R.Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts.V.Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.R.The whole earth is full of his glory.

But in all fairness, having thus spoken concerning widows, let us betake ourselves again among the married, and join with them in entertaining the opinion which is held by so many, that there are only three classes of men who are shut out from the great supper named in the Gospel, which three classes are Heathens, Jews, and Hereticks. And therefore it is that the Apostle warneth us that we walk not as other Gentiles walk, in malice and bitterness, and uncleanness, and covetousness, and so have no entry into the kingdom of Christ, since no unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Avoid the neo-modernist catch words and talk like a true traditionalist!

"Renew" says "out with the old, in with the new." In other words: Aggiornamento. It's a malicious euphemism that seeks to spread its modernist poison among the weak minded and effeminate. It evokes the root of all evil in our modern world: Felt banners. Liturgical dance. Dialogue. Ecumenism. Historical Consciousness. New Pentecost. Reformation. Revolution. Death to tradition.

"Restore," on the other hand, says "in with the old, out with the new." In other words: Tradition. It's a strong, firm word, said with conviction of the value of the past and seeks continuity between it and the present. It evokes the vigor of the Church: Stability. Condemnation of Heresy. Social Kingship of Christ. Scholasticism. Counter-Reformation. Counter-Revolution.

So if you're a real trad, be brave and strong and seek the Church's restoration, to restore tradition; don't seek to 'renew' or be an advocate of 'renewal', or you'll be identified as a post-conciliar softie. Aim to restore the Church, not to 'renew' it. Defend therestorationof Sacred Theology, shun its 'renewal'. Fight to restore the liturgy, and be nauseated by its 'renewal'. Let us restore all things in Christ, not 'renew' them.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Quaeritur: What are the Techniques of Neo-Modernism and the Nouvelle Theologie?

Quaeritur: [In your previous post on the nouvelle theologie], you have named 'resourcement' as an inherently dangerous neo-modernist strategy. Would you elucidate more such strategies we might encounter equally capable of confounding our understanding and leading us away from the Church?

Respondeo: Yes, ressourcement is a technique that is used (most often) to "raze the bastions," i.e., to destroy the positive foundations of the traditional interpretation of the faith. But we must distinguish between positive theology and ressourcement.

Positive Theology vs. Ressourcement Theology.Positive theology is a perfectly legitimate method mastered by the Fathers of the Church and perfected by the Scholastics throughout the centuries which consists in studying the sources of theology, first in their own native literary context, and then collating them topically, so they may be ultimately used in support for a given thesis. (Nouvelle theologie practitioners often criticize the Scholastics because, supposedly, the Scholastics used the sources merely to formulate "proofs from authority"; but these self-professed lovers of historical theology don't bother to realize that Scholastic proofs were merely the end-result of a much more elaborate study of sources that involved intensive literary courses, the resulting commentaries, along with its sophisticated divisiones textus, consequent florilegia, etc., etc. It was a whole culture of historical and literary awareness of classical sources that modern scholars can only envy and not imitate.) St Thomas was a master in this technique, as is evident, not only from his employment of the fruits of positive theology in the Summa or his disputed questions (for example, whenever he cites Scripture, St Augustine, Aristotle, etc. in support of a thesis), but especially as it is evident from his commentaries on Scripture, Aristotle, and other thinkers, and in particular from his impressive biblical patrology, the Catena aurea. It is important for theologians especially to use this technique, for their conclusions must ultimately be based on the sources of Revelation. And the Scholastics were very aware of this. St Thomas speaks of this theological task explicitly in Summa theologiaeI.1.8 ad 2.

Ressourcement, however, goes beyond a mere proof from authority; if it were, it would be nothing new. Rather, it is a collective attempt by neo-modernist theologians--who are experts in the history of dogma and theology--to replace the traditional understanding of the faith by selectively citing (or re-interpreting) obscure sources and texts to their advantage, in such a way that discredits the traditional understanding of the faith it is expressed by the overwhelming consensus of Fathers of the Church, of the Doctors of the Church, the approved theologians, the Councils, the Popes, catechisms, and faithful throughout the ages. Essentially this is the old informal fallacy of special pleading, except glorified by a triumphalistic title that means essentially 'returning to the sources'. The word is supposed to give us warm-and-fuzzy feelings, the sense of finally understanding the faith the way it was originally meant to be understood, after over a millenium of not getting it, and half a millenium of that horrible old 'Tridentine' religion. Other Methods. Now, ressourcement is their chief method, but they employ other techniques as well, most of which are logical corollaries of ressourcement. These methods are applied not only to dogma, but to every area of the Church: Philosophy, Apologetics, Ecclesiology, Fundamental Theology, Morals, Scripture, Liturgy, Canon Law, Homiletics, etc. It is a new theology that is supposed to 'renew' the entire life of the Church, which is now considered to be in its 'Springtime' and in a 'new Pentecost'. Among these corollaries are (A) the new 'historical' theology, (B) the rejection of Scholasticism, (C) the introduction of false modern philosophies, and (D) the exclusion from their thought of all scientific order.

(A) The new 'historical' theology logically follows from resourcement and its neo-modernist epistemology: if truth is the correspondence of the intellect with our modern way of life (adaequatio intellectus et vitae), rather than with reality, then theology is not the science of God's reality as it is contained in revelation; rather, is no more than a narrative of the different ways in which theological minds have corresponded to the lifestyles of the different times in which they have lived. The value of the great Fathers, Doctors, and Theologias of the Church boils down to the fact they expressed the faith to their contemporaries 'using the categories of their own times'.

(B) The abandonment of Scholasticism also logically follows from this and is simply its negative counterpart. We are to 'return to the Fathers', which really does not mean imitating the Fathers (that would be too traditional) but rather attaining a historical consciousness of patristic thought. But this historical consciousness excludes the supposedly anti-historical (and 'boring'!) mode of reasoning employed in the Scholastic method. Therefore, a good practitioner of the nouvelle theologie must 'return to the Fathers' and bypass Scholasticism altogether. Accordingly, Thomistic philosophy and theology are no longer pursued as sciences that concern God and reality taking inspiration and guidance from the thought of St Thomas, but as a historical narrative of what St Thomas said and believed.

(C) As logical consequence, the role that Thomistic philosophy traditionally played in the Church is neutralized, and in its place, new, vague, existentialist philosophies such as phenomenology and personalism are introduced in order 'justify' neo-modernism (although in really it is impossible to give epistemic justification to a self-referentially inconsistent theory--I shall explain in a later post why both modernism and neo-modernism are self-referentially inconsistent).

(D) The exclusion of scientific order from their thought follows from their existentialist philosophy and is a common denominator they have with their predecessors, the modernists. Here we can quote Pope St Pius X's Pascendi(paragraph 4):

But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.

There are lots of other techniques that are used by particular neo-modernists, but these are at least the most commonly used by the movement. Ultimately, however, all of these methods are only means that are subservient to the end of aggiornamento: destroying tradition and establishing a new interpretation of the Catholic faith. They will employ any other method that helps them achieve this end. Resourcement happens to be their favorite (because it is so clever, deceptive, and effective), but it not the only one.

Further Reading. All of this is already outlined in Ven. Pope Pius XII's Humani generis, and discussed with technical precision in the two Garrigou-Lagrange previously cited:

An revealing book on the Nouvelle Theologie has been published recently, Nouvelle Thologie - New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II. It is written by Jurgen Mettepenningen, a liberal who celebrates the triumph of modernism through the Nouvelle Theology. Here is the product description from amazon.com:

This title provides an introduction to the most influential movement in Catholic theology in the 20th century which prepared the ground for the Second Vatican Council. La nouvelle theologie - New Theology - was the name of one of the most dynamic and fascinating movements within Catholic theology in the 20th century. Although first condemned by Pope Pius XII. in 1946 and later in his encyclical Humani generis in 1950, it became influential in the preparation of the Second Vatican Council. The movement was instigated by French Dominican Yves Congar with his Dominican confreres Marie-Dominique Chenu and Louis Charlier and linked with the Dominican academy at Le Saulchouir (Tournai), but soon taken over by Jesuits of the same generation of theologians: Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, Henri Bouillard and Yves de Montcheuil. They laid strong emphasis on the supernatural, the further implementation of historical method within theology, the ressourcement (back to Scripture, liturgy and Fathers), and the connection between life, faith and theology. Many of them were participating as periti in the Second Vatican Council, which finally accepted the striving of the new theology. Hence, the original perception of the New Theology as novitas would become an auctoritas in the field of Catholic theology. On the basis of research of archives and literature Jurgen Mettepenningen shows in his book the different theological positions of both Dominican and Jesuit protagonists, the development of their ideas in close relationship with the theological view and the sanctions of the Roman Catholic Church, and the great importance of the generation of the discussed Dominican and Jesuit theologians and their New Theology. He proves that the protagonists of both the first and the second phase of the nouvelle theologie constituted together the generation of theologians necessary to implement the striving of the modernist era within the Church at the time of Vatican II.